Complete Sherlock Homes

Hi all, I'm looking to pick up a complete collection of Sherlock Homes and there a few sets I am considering. I wondered if anyone had knowledge of the different sets and publishers.

Firstly there is the Folio 1994 5 book set with Sherlock on the brown-ish coloured spines. I know there was another matching set with Watson on the spines but am not too fussed about these.

Then there is the Folio 2004 5 book set with red spines.

The Easton Press 3-volume set, and particularly I am looking at the 100th anniversary set.

Then finally there is the Barnes & Noble leather-bound classic single volume book with ribbed spine and gilded pages.

I am looking for a decent quality collectible version (also for reading), with good quality paper and the original writing that hasn't been adapted in any way. I've read in a few places that the American published ones may have been adapted with some of the words changed out for American versions of the words instead.

There is quite a cost difference between the sets starting with the B&N that I could pick up for about £18, through to the EP one that would cost circa £140. However the writing must be the original and I would be happy not to have the expensive EP set if the Folio ones and even the B&N one is just as good production quality. Also happy to consider other options if they fall within my price range.

All comments would be greatly appreciated for this beginner collector!

Thanks, Lee

>1 leemeadowcroft: Have a look at the Limited Editions Club (LEC) and Heritage Press (HP) editions. For detailed info on either of these editions you should ask over on the George Macy Devotees group

>1 leemeadowcroft:

If you want the complete Sherlock from Folio you'll need all nine volumes - the five with Holmes across their spines contain the shorter stories, the four with Watson are Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Valley of Fear. Apologies if you've already noticed as much and aren't interested in the novels.

Thanks terebinth, I wasn't aware of that actually, shows I should do my research properly!

In that case, the only matching Folio complete set is the older one, which is expensive! The red spine reissue didn't include the Watson books as far as I know. I was under the impression the red spine version was the 4 novels and the 56 short stories. That narrows down my options somewhat.

>4 leemeadowcroft:

Yes, that's the way of it. The five-volume Stories set was published in 1993, with a second printing in '94, a third in '95 and a fourth in red cloth in 2004: the four volumes of Novels were published in 1994, with a single reprint so far in '96. Of those only The Hound of the Baskervilles has been reprinted since, as a solitary volume in 2006 and now again as a 'Collectable'.

>3 terebinth:

Do you have the whole set, and if so, any chance of a picture? Sounds great.

Here it is on eBay...

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=272193056485&alt=web

>6 LolaWalser:

Sorry, I haven't any at all: my Sherlock Holmes is a humble box of Penguins. Just passing on the information from Folio 60.

I've got an image uploaded to my junk drawer, but don't seem to be able to get here, trying to use img src=" ". Any suggestions please?

>7 leemeadowcroft:, >8 terebinth:, >9 Willoyd:

Thanks! I remember seeing the (red) Sherlock Holmes set, but not the Watson. Sigh. Now I want it all... :)

>9 Willoyd:

I saw your picture by right-clicking and selecting "View image" (in Firefox). Sometimes it's the post, sometimes the browser, so this was just faster than asking.

Have you tried adding the double quotation marks around your link? Not the img src bit, just the link.

Think I've got it. Using wrong link:

Lovely!

Consider also the Oxford Sherlock Holmes. It has introductions and notes, but they are kept at the back of each volume, leaving the text free and pristine. The notes are factual and scholarly and do not play the game of treating Holmes and Watson as real people. They also point out the differences between British and American editions. Note, though, that the hardback volumes are pocket size. If you're interested, try to find to first edition/first impression. This is very well printed, later impressions less so.

http://bakerstreetbabble.weebly.com/221b-home/the-oxford-sherlock-holmes

(Edited for typos)

Thanks for the comments. What I might do, at least initially, is go for the B&N single volume leatherbound book. What bothers me most though is the Amazon comments about the book being in American English with words being adapted, I absolutely don't want that. But I'm not sure if those comments relate to the printed edition that we can buy on UK shelves or UK Amazon, or only to the Kindle version. The full Folio set is unfortunaly too expensive just at the moment.

>1 leemeadowcroft: "All comments would be greatly appreciated for this beginner collector"

>15 leemeadowcroft: "What I might do, at least initially, is go for the B&N single volume leatherbound book."

Lee, you don't specify whether you are a beginner collector of Holmes or a beginner collector of books, but if the latter and if you are serious about it, then I would suggest you set your sights perhaps a bit higher then the B&N books, as they are not really collectible quality.

Hi, I am a beginner collector of books in general, I have started by picking up a number of FS books on the secondhand market (Crime and Punishment, Brothers Karamazov, Ghandi, Middle March) and buying a few from FS that has given me membership (Hobbit, LoTR, 1984). I have also picked up the Penguin Clothbound Dickens set of 6 books and my wife has ordered the similar Jane Austen seven book set.

I'm not really looking to get B&N books for the sherlock set that particular book looked like a cheap compromise I.e. not overly expensive but still hard back and "collectible".

I have my eyes on a few FS and EP books but having spent a fair bit on the above I'm being a little more selective for the next few weeks. Otherwise I would go straight for the EP edition of Sherlock but welcome comments on the options of different editions and publishers.

Cheers, Lee.

A (very) cheap alternative may be the facsimile editions of Strand magazine's original runs. There is a one-volume omnibus, but more attractive, imo, are the separate editions of Casebook, Memoirs, Return etc. (hardcover with dustjackets). They won't break the bank, and for the history-minded provide that extra interest of appearing (pages, that is) as they did to the first readers, including Sidney Paget's original illustrations (which inspired the most famous visual impressions of Holmes).

Various publishers issued these in the US and the UK, just search for Sherlock Holmes Strand facsimile... Here's one example, the Bramhall House edition from 1975:



Possible downside, they don't include secondary material or commentary. (There are at least two heavily annotated Sherlock Holmes editions, if that's desirable.)

I have the 1992 Barnes & Noble leather-bound (I know, it's bonded leather, but I'm not a purist). I don't know if the words have been changed from British English, but the words I see in it are not American English. In "The Red-Headed League," for example, page 177, there is the word "labour" as opposed to the American "labor" (page 177). I can't say for sure this is the same edition as the current B&N offering, but it probably is, just with a different cover. I do find the 1992 cover more classical and subdued than the current, and while I would love the Folio series, I don't have that much shelf space. A one-volume offering of all the novels and short stories is just fine for me, and I did read it in its entirety. I found it eminently readable.

With HotB coming out as a Collectible do you think that FS are likely to publish another full set?

>20 el_danos:

Sooner or later, I expect, but it's anyone's guess when. I think I'd rate it as about a 50-50 chance in the next ten years if the FS remains in about its present state of health; or maybe lower than that, if they continue in what seems to be a recent trend away from issuing larger sets. I'm not sure Hound of the Baskervilles affects things much either way, except if it's among the best selling Collectables it could act as a reminder of as lively market in Holmes.

>1 leemeadowcroft: If you're new to Sherlock Holmes and want some inexpensive, but informative editions, get the paperback ones from the Modern Library.

But if you really want a good set of notes, I have to agree with #14 Boldface -- the Oxford set is EXCELLENT!!!

I own many complete sets of Sherlock Holmes, including the leather-bound EP set, and still my favorite set to read are the Oxford books. They were heavily researched as to the original editions, and the introductions in each volume are spectacular.

(Although, I have no FS editions yet and am envious of the one pictured above!)

>22 jhicks62:

Contrary to a criticism in one of the Amazon.com reviews, my first edition/first impressions (1993) of the Oxford Sherlock Holmes are definitely sewn, not just glued - I can see the threads. That's another reason (as well as the printing I mentioned above) for seeking out the first impressions. I also have the mighty Baring-Gould Annotated Sherlock Holmes, but it's too big to read comfortably and I soon tire of the endless excuses having to be made for ACD's imperfect chronology, etc., which was never intended to stand up to such minute scrutiny! The Oxford set has no truck with all that and just illuminates all the contemporary references and gives the reader a comprehensive background to the writing and publication of the stories, while noting any variants.

>23 boldface: I completely agree with you! I have the Baring-Gould (the enormous 1-volume edition) and the New Annotated set from Leslie Klinger, which is superb -- but I always go back to the Oxford set. I'd have to agree about the 1st edition set being a sewn binding -- I also bought mine when it first came out and I'm sure it's sewn.

>22 jhicks62:
>23 boldface:

Unfortunately, it's not at all unusual for Oxford University Press to change the physical aspects of a book and sell it under the same ISBN.

Thanks again for the comments, very insightful :-)

Any thoughts on this set?

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=262353084500&alt=web

Published by the BCA who are no more.

The Oxford set, Folio 1994 set and EP set all appear to be around the £100 mark. Which is fine but means I'll have to wait a little longer for them and then pick one. Or go with a chepaer set like the one above or the B&N single volume.

Because of the searching I did related to this thread, I am now getting Amazon advertisements on various webpages for the Knickerbocker Classics edition of the Collected Works of Sherlock Holmes published by Race Point Publishing. The campus bookstore here has Race Point's Complete Novels of Jane Austen and when I peek through the shrink-wrap at the part of the book protruding from the slipcase, I think I see the signatures that would suggest a sewn binding. If the Holmes collection has a sewn binding, that might be a nice deal.

>26 leemeadowcroft:

I have no direct experience of this set, but looking at the description it appears to be a version of the Penguin editions, but with boards round them. Penguin texts are usually reliable but I've no idea what the paper or printing are like.

>28 boldface:

Yes, probably a hardback version of the set I have, http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sherlock-Holmes-Boxset-containing-Titles/dp/0140913505/ , minus its tenth volume of "Further Adventures" by a variety of authors. I think I paid £9.99 from a remainder outlet. The texts seem good, with typos much less of a problem than certain Folio titles I could mention, printing is adequately clear, binding is "perfect" not sewn and paper is cheap and certain to turn yellow. I very much doubt Book Club Associates production standards would have been any higher.

>29 terebinth: I very much doubt Book Club Associates production standards would have been any higher.

If there's one single reason why BCA went out of business production standards would be it. Cheap and nasty, mostly. Comparing BCA with Folio is a joke.

Have ordered a copy of the B&N volume for now but definitely have the Folio 1993 set on my wishlist, at the right price.

My set is not in any sort of fine binding but is, I think, of some interest. John Murray and Jonathan Cape published a uniform set of the nine volumes in 1974. This is what the Adventures looks like: https://www.librarything.com/work/19007/book/14844960

The interesting feature was the introduction to each volume commissioned specially from contemporary authors in similar genres such as Eric Ambler, Graham Greene and Len Deighton. Even one from C. P. Snow - I'm not sure how he qualified.

I have no idea how easy they are to find.

>32 abbottthomas: About C. P. Snow
He is kinda known about his lamentations about the split between science and the humanities and Sherlock Holmes is a poster child for the combination of them - especially with Holmes' penchant for the scientific way to solve issues. So it does fit :)

Nobody has mentioned the Baring-Gould two volume set. I was lucky enough to inherit my edition from my father, who was a far more avid Holmesian than I ever will be (he led Holmes walks and gave talks that I followed him round on and loved as a boy). The Oxford and Klinger sets may have superseded this to some extent, but they are still thoroughly readable and fascinating, and much loved in this household.

>34 Willoyd:

See >23 boldface: & >24 jhicks62:, although I admit I wasn't very complimentary!

I agree there is a lot of information in them, including genuine facts. There are also reproductions of many of the original Paget illustrations, even if they're very small. And, although I concede that many enjoy the game of trying to reconcile the apparent contradictions among Conan Doyle's off-the-cuff background "facts", while setting them within a convincing and realistic chronology, I personally prefer to stick to the literary realities. Also, you do need ideally to sit at a table when reading them.

However, that said, they can provide many hours of innocent and absorbing entertainment.

>33 AnnieMod: The Two Cultures, eh? Do you remember Watson's assessment of Holmes in the Study in Scarlet?

1. Knowledge of Literature: Nil.
2. Knowledge of Philosophy: Nil.
3. Knowledge of Astronomy: Nil.
4. Knowledge of Politics: Feeble.
5. Knowledge of Botany: Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium, and poisons generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening.
6. Knowledge of Geology: Practical but limited. Tells at a glance different soils from each other. After walks has shown me splashes upon his trousers, and told me by their colour and consistence in what part of London he had received them.
7. Knowledge of Chemistry: Profound.
8. Knowledge of Anatomy: Accurate but unsystematic.
9. Knowledge of Sensational Literature: Immense. He appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century.
10. Plays the violin well.
11. Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman.
12. Has a good practical knowledge of British law.

He was a fan of Sarasate and Paganini and we are told he enjoyed Wagner (much to his credit), but without music he would be very much on the science side of the divide.

I've just pulled out The Case-book of Sherlock Holmes to read Snow's introduction again. He emphasises that, for him, the lives of Holmes and Watson are "curiously soothing to read about." He suggests that the stories are an "artistic triumph, of a very strange kind, achieved without the writer's full engagement". He describes the works as "not specially ingenious detective stories" that were "never very good". He doesn't see Doyle as a scientific innovator and the suggestion that he got in before Popper and Medawar on "the hypothetico-deductive basis of the scientific process" is only possible with enough self-hypnotism.

What Snow really admires is the character of Conan Doyle: brave, honourable, generous and open-hearted, a specimen of Victorian England at its best. He ends by contrasting Doyle with another eminent Victorian doctor, W. G. Grace, a worse doctor than Doyle and "a cheat, on and off the Cricket field" who exhibited "almost the exact opposite of Doyle's virtues, including extreme meanness, trickery, and ..... physical cowardice. You get the feeling that Snow was glad of the opportunity to get that off his chest!

I'm going to have to re-read all the other introductions now, but this one confirms to me the merits of this edition.

>35 boldface:

Oops, yes, sorry. Missed that. Well I didn't, I recall reading your post, but for some reason didn't click. Heavens knows why.

I do agree about the minutiae of detail discussed, which is fun in small doses, but there's a lot of good information there as well. I'll eventually get hold of an Oxford set, but having both FS and Baring-Gould, have plenty to be getting on with!

>36 abbottthomas:

Well, yes. Holmes do no understand anything from literature but is a character in a series of stories. :) Snow had never been... subtle - when he has to say something, he is blunt and just says it. So not really surprised by the tone - a bit surprised by the views. :)

>32 abbottthomas:

Ha! Memories! That's the first "nice" full set of Holmes I had (as opposed to scattered Penguins)--in Croatian translation, but same covers. They were paperbacks and came in one big slipcase. My twelfth birthday.

>34 Willoyd:

Baring-Gould's and the newer one published by W. W. Norton was what I meant by "two annotated editions". I don't know of any other. I had both at one point but found them too distracting for reading the stories, and myself not enough of a Sherlockian to pore endlessly over commentary.

I've had all three sets of Sherlock Holmes! First, forget the B&N set. It looks good on the shelf but small text makes it terrible for reading. The EP set is very nice. The only negative I can list is that the books are heavy and not much fun to hold while reading. Also the text is better than the B&N edition, but far less desirable than the FS edition. I often go back to the FS edition! Anyway, that's my opinion.

Hope it helped

I hadn't seen the Oxford set before! I'll have to keep my eye out for it in the future.

I too have the Baring-Gould and Klinger and prize both but, yes, they fail on grounds of practicality except for reference purposes. I gaze at them on my bookshelves and occasionally give them a dusting.

>42 scratchpad: You're right -- those two sets are great as reference books, but they're not exactly reading-in-bed books. When I just want to reread the stories, I'll get out the EP versions or the Oxford editions. Another favorite are the old John Murray editions -- perfect for their reading size!

>27 cpg:

I ended up ordering the Knickerbocker Classics edition. The binding is indeed sewn. I'm glad I made the purchase.

Norton annotated Sherlock holmes is quite nice. three large volumes are spread over two slipcased sets (vols. 1 and 2 covering the five short story collections, vol. 3 the four full-length novels). Illustrations appear at every possible opportunity; not just Sidney Paget’s famous Strand drawings, but also those of other artists and publications showing the same scenes.

http://www.beautifulbookcovers.com/the-new-annotated-sherlock-holmes/

http://bakerstreetbeat.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/complete-sherlock-holmes.html

I've got to agree with SugarCang--the Norton New Annotated Sherlock Holmes is a wonderful set. Lots of illustrations and annotations and photographs from the Victorian/Edwardian era. I can't speak to the quality of the binding vs. the other editions discussed here, but it's a highly entertaining series and very sturdily put together. Editor Leslie Klinger "plays the game" with his notes, though--in other words, treats Holmes and Watson as real people, who underwent real adventures. This sort of thing is indulged in by vast numbers of dedicated Holmes fans, whose societies span the globe; contributors to Sherlock Holmes "studies" include doctors, lawyers, and even President Franklin Roosevelt--who believed Holmes was a born American, heh heh). I've learned to enjoy it a lot, but at first it can seem pedantic to read a footnote about which trains Holmes and Watson might have taken in one of their adventures. But it can also be quite fun, as when editor Klinger discusses the types of guns Holmes and Watson likely used, or when he spends an appendix discussing which species of snake was used to kill...but perhaps I've said too much...

Another way to go would be the original annotated Sherlock Holmes put out by Leslie Baring-Gould. It's two volumes, rather than the three volumes in the Norton edition, and has, IMO, a bit more in the way of annotated commentary--quite a bit on where the "real" 221B Baker Street is located, and that sort of thing--but many of the Victorian photographs are of poor quality. Dunno if it was because the photos are so old, or because of the state of printing in the late 1960's. FYI, Baring-Gould also "plays the game", so much so that he orders the stories in the order he (and other Sherlockians) believe Holmes solved them. The Hound of the Baskervilles, you'll be glad to know, was run to ground in late September-October, 1888 (and Baring-Gould includes snippets of weather reports to justify his reasoning). While not currently in print, it can be easily found online for reasonable prices. For some reason I find myself turning to this edition more often than the Klinger version these days...Perhaps it's because Baring-Gould goes all-out in playing the game, while Klinger hedges a little (Klinger has also released more heavily annotated softcover editions of the Holmes canon, with separate books for Adventures, Memoirs, Return, Final Bow, etc...Which are, he says, for dedicated fans. There's lots more footnotes, but for some reason--possibly related to publishing expense, as the publisher is a small press--there's basically NOTHING in the way of photographs, illustrations, or diagrams that you find in the less-annotated Norton hardcovers. Ideally I would transplant the softcover small-press annotations into the illustration-photo-diagram-heavy Norton hardcovers...Maybe someday!

Minor correction to #47's excellent descriptions of the annotated books. The older set is by William S. Baring-Gould, and it was also available in a single-volume edition (I have one).

Sorry for resurrecting this thread after such a long gap. However, OUP appears to be bringing out a revised paperback edition of the Holmes canon in 2023/2024 with fresh introductions and up to date explanatory notes. It appears to be a revision of the 1990s 'The Oxford Sherlock Holmes' series. However, I can only find information on 6 of the 9 books:

A Study in Scarlet - 978-0198856047

The Hound of the Baskervilles - 978-0198835226

The Sign of the Four - 978-0198862123

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - 978-0198865759

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes - 978-0198863120

The Return of Sherlock Holmes - 978-0198856702

Nothing yet on valley of fear, last bow, or the casebook.

>49 kewlking:

Welcome to LibraryThing.

You may like to post in the group Baker Street and Beyond - it seems very sleepy, with few recent posts, but has over 400 members. I am a little surprised at the need for up to date explanatory notes - perhaps to tell new readers there were no mobile phones?